Only 17% for development: Nairobi pours billions into recurrent spending
Even within the limited development spending, nearly Sh900 million was used to settle pending bills, raising concerns about the county’s ability to fund new projects as it continues to grapple with the country’s highest pending bills, now at Sh115.69 billion.
Nairobi County spent less than a fifth of its Sh21.81 billion budget on development in the last nine months, diverting most funds to garbage, legal fees and settling debts instead of investing in new public projects, a report by the Controller of Budget reveals.
The report shows that only Sh2.43 billion—just 17 percent of the funds received between July 2024 and March 2025—was spent on development programmes, while Sh19.38 billion went to recurrent costs.
“Expenditure on development programmes represented an absorption rate of 17 per cent, while recurrent expenditures represented 66.1 per cent of the annual recurrent expenditure budget,” the report states.
The county government headed by Governor Johnson Sakaja spent Sh12.27 billion of its recurrent budget on employee compensation, while Sh6.12 billion was used on operations and maintenance.
At the same time, Nairobi used Sh3.3 billion to pay legal fees, manage garbage and clear debts. Out of this, Sh1.13 billion was spent on solid waste management, Sh892.1 million on legal fees and Sh1.3 billion on other creditors.
A closer look shows the county spent Sh262.09 million on disaster items, Sh63.68 million to hire heavy equipment, and Sh216.81 million on travel allowances. Event management took Sh58.3 million, while advertising used up Sh47.5 million. Foreign conferences cost Sh167.1 million, and an additional Sh35.5 million was spent on local conferences.
Other payments included Sh28.69 million on uniforms, Sh27.98 million on vehicle tyres, Sh18.19 million for public participation, Sh16.8 million on hose pipes and Sh12.5 million for spare parts.
The county also used public funds on cleaning services for markets (Sh11.2 million), campaign materials (Sh9.6 million), consultancy fees (Sh9.5 million), communication gadgets (Sh10.3 million), and motor vehicle batteries (Sh76.6 million). Videography cost Sh1 million, signage works Sh2.1 million, and staging and branding Sh4.7 million.
Although development received minimal funding, a large part of it was not even spent on new initiatives. Instead, the report shows the County Executive used Sh893.92 million of the development budget to settle pending bills. The Assembly also used Sh1.96 million from its development allocation for the same purpose.
With Nairobi still carrying the country’s highest pending bills at Sh115.69 billion, the report paints a picture of a capital city struggling to invest in actual development as its financial obligations drain the little money available.
